ASUS augmented its socket FM2 motherboard lineup with the F2A85-V, a lite variant of the F2A85-V Pro the company kicked off its Trinity APU-compatible motherboard lineup with. The new F2A85-V trims down on a few things over the -Pro variant, such as simpler independent VRM and FCH heatsinks with no heat-pipe connecting them, fewer APU power phases, and a lighter expansion slot layout that isn't ideal for multi-GPU setups.

To begin with, the F2A85-V features a 6-phase APU VRM that draws power from a 4-pin ATX connector, compared to the 8-phase one drawing from an 8-pin EPS, on the F2A85-V Pro. The FM2 socket is connected to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting a maximum of 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory; and a single PCI-Express 2.0 x16. Other expansion slots include a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to the A85X FCH), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and three legacy PCI slots.

Display connectivity on the F2A85-V includes one each of dual-link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Storage includes seven SATA 6 Gb/s, and an eSATA 6 Gb/s. The rest of the connectivity includes four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by header), 8-channel HD audio with optical TOSLINK output, gigabit Ethernet, PS/2 mouse/keyboard, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS. It is expected to hold a sub-$100 price-point.

I'm not a fan of these large APU motherboards, i always though most APU systems would run a single graphics card, and at a push a wireless card or something. They're not exactly designed for top end systems, most people i know with APU's have them on tiny mobos in tiny cases.
Also that SATA layout is awful, i see that layout on P4 boards xD

F2A85-V is the 10th FM2 motherboard from Asus, and they're all ATX and mATX. When are we going to get some mITX love? Seems like an mITX board would fill a bigger gap in their line-up than this board which is a mild upgrade to the F2A55 (+2 SATA, +2 USB 3.0, other minor differences).

Absolute silence without compromising performance is my only benchmark score.

Why they keep on insisting on these outdated idiotic PCI slots on a 2013 hardware!? Why don't they add ISA and AGP as well, "just in case" if someone will maybe need it. This board would make load sof sense with 2x PCIe 16x and all the rest lower speed PCIe slots. But with 3x PCI slots, they basically ruined it. I wanted my Rampage II Gene to be all PCIe back then, today i don't even want to look at anything that still has PCI slots on it.

Why they keep on insisting on these outdated idiotic PCI slots on a 2013 hardware!? Why don't they add ISA and AGP as well, "just in case" if someone will maybe need it. This board would make load sof sense with 2x PCIe 16x and all the rest lower speed PCIe slots. But with 3x PCI slots, they basically ruined it. I wanted my Rampage II Gene to be all PCIe back then, today i don't even want to look at anything that still has PCI slots on it.

Click to expand...

There are people like me who still use PCI slots

I use them for Sound card and TV Tuner cards. This 3 PCI slot is perfect for my media center upgrade as the third slot is needed for a parallel port so I can use the front LED display on my Ahanix case (I would have preferred a built-in parallel port right on the board). Why throw those perfectly working PCI devices?

I'll go ahead and jump on the not needed bandwagon...
1 x8 PCI-E slot full sized, 2 x2 PCI-E and 2 slots for ram is all that's needed for any FM2 board anything else and you're missing the point....completely

yeah i dunno why asus still run sata ports like that
is that easier to get assembled maybe

Click to expand...

ASUS has had angled SATA ports since the early days of LGA775. I still have a running ASUS Commando, and the SATA ports were as angled back then as they are now with every other modern design.
No idea why they specifically put those non-angled connectors (and PCI slots) on this board. I guess the strange board config is probably special request of some sort from a customer with unconventional requirements.

I think this board is being unfairly attacked by some who are a little unimaginative. The size, pci slots plus the rest are perfect for me who needed a large budget board that could still use my old XFI soundcard that works perfect after I disabled the MB sound.

The extra PCI slots and size gives plenty of breathing air space for the PCIE graphics card, and any extra cards I might put in ( I have a TV card lying around somewhere). With the oldish Radeon 6900 dedicated card and the A19 5800K combo I have a pretty decent rig that`ll run most games really well and it`ll suit me fine for a while till I upgrade.

I say, ASUS was thinking imaginatively, not just for people with the most `bragging rights` cash.